Today is Columbus Day here in the United States, though you wouldn’t know it by talking to many Americans, for whom Christopher Columbus is little more than a name on the calendar. This morning, I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few things, and I remarked to the young cashier that the store seemed especially quiet for the holiday.

“It’s a holiday?” she asked. “Columbus Day,” I said. “Oh. Right. I think I heard this girl say something about it. She said it was, like, the day Columbus died. He was the guy that founded Ohio or something, right?”Close. Columbus is the capital of Ohio.

If ever you wondered how it is that so many can believe in Atlantis, ancient astronauts, or alternative history, you have your answer. The depths of American historical ignorance continue to astound me. (I’m sure other countries have similar problems, though I don’t live there to know firsthand.) Of course, Columbus himself was no better. In many ways, he behaved like today’s “alternative” writers, nowhere more prominently than in his adamant refusal to accept—against all evidence—that he had discovered a new continent, not a new path to the Orient. He died still holding the official position that he had found Asia, not a new world. He also, like his alternative counterparts today, produced a book of alternative speculation called The Book of Prophecies (1501-1505) in which he argued that his voyages were marked out in the Bible as harbingers of the End Time, over which Spain’s Catholic Monarchs would preside as the Last World Emperor of medieval myth. In his mind, he felt he had contributed to bringing about the return of Christ. Compare this to Erich von Däniken, who believes he is bringing about the return of the aliens. At least Columbus had some genuine discoveries to his credit. But today there is something worse that just ignorance. I was talking with a professor of communications who teaches introductory journalism and mass communication courses for a major university here in New York State, and what he had to say shocked and surprised me. His students, both traditional college-aged students and non-traditional adult learners, simply cannot tell a fact from an opinion, or distinguish between news stories and opinion columns, or between professional journalism and random internet screeds and blog postings. This is quite horrifying when we stop to think how many must take Ancient Aliens for truth because it appears on TV. One of the first assignments in this professor’s introductory media literacy course is to bring to class a well-reported, professional news story to critique, and over the two years this professor has been teaching the course, he said anywhere from half to two-thirds of the class brings in pieces of internet writing that just aren’t news writing, including opinion blogs, website comments, and—increasingly—content farm websites that are laid out like news sites but use user-submitted, unedited content like Examiner.com and Huliq.com. Is it a coincidence that ancient astronauts and Atlantis are to be found haunting the pages of both sites? This immediately made me think of how Huliq.com fooled skeptic Benjamin Radford and the editors of Discovery News because the site looks like news even if much of it reads like ungrammatical, childish scribbling. Never mind the number of people who take The Onion for truth. I suppose we could blame the internet, but after two decades of online life, there really isn’t any excuse for not being able to tell truth from fantasy, or facts from opinions. It is, however, an important reminder that no matter what is posted online—or broadcast on TV or the radio—someone will believe it.

I am not sure if this is the fault of our students or our education system. There are not too many students who are interested in Geography or History on their own. When teaching I tried to tie subjects students were less interested into things that they were interested in. For example, when teaching the Geography and History of a country we would watch ten or fifteen min of Bizarre foods related to the area. Students loved this and were more attentive to their study of the area afterwards. Given a better school system I think our country as a whole would improve.

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Julianne

10/9/2012 03:15:27 am

And yet, life goes on - because knowledge of historical "facts" is so over-rated.

Have you ever read "Lies my Teacher Told Me?"

The account in that book of Christopher Columbus points out how the "heroes" we learn about in childdood are often crooked villains. This is one reason I don't worry too much about teaching historical "facts" to my child. The past is painted in textbooks to give students the image desired by the ones writing the text and is often filled with its own set of lies and convenient ommisions of truth.

Patriotism is crammed into the heads of young minds to make them good little drones who will fight and die for their country and never question the real motive behind the orders. Good little drones of a hive mind. "Sheeple" - baaaaaahh

If students are unable to tell the difference between fact and opinion, it is NOT due to a lack of fact-cramming in the History category. It's because they are told WHAT to think, not HOW to think - this is why I homeschool.

Don't believe everything in textbooks. Keep it mind that even the Jewish Holocaust would be taught as a great "cleansing" even in the history of the world if WWII had been won by the Germans.

History is ALWAYS one point of view.

ALWAYS

And that IS a historical fact.

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John Lowe

10/9/2012 07:48:20 pm

I was not addressing the fact vs. opinion issue in my post, only the lack of Historical and Geographic knowledge that many Americans possess.
History is often presented one sided, but it is silly to say that it is ALWAYS from one point of view.
As far the fact vs. opinion issues goes I would attribute it to lack of basic reading and writing skills. Language is the foundation of intelligence. People with good reading and writing skill are generally more intelligent than people without. Our school systems need a very serious overhaul, and a good hard look at what really is most important to teach our children.

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Julianne

10/10/2012 01:36:23 am

Um, I actually wasn't commenting on your comment, Mr. Lowe. I was commenting on Jason's blog post. I hadn't even read your comment. What would make you think my comment was directed toward you at all?

Great piece as usual. I just wanted to remark (even though this is a bit old now for a comment) that I completely agree with you. Unfortunately, as a liberal and left-of-center individual in most respects, I actually do have to blame the liberal ideals for this in a way. Much as it saddens me, the whole "do your own thing" from the 60's has morphed into an entire pseudo-philosophy which is widely accepted of "believe your own thing". The whole "everyone has a point of view and there is no objective truth" is very much to blame for this (along with many other things, of course). I believe that many religious people took advantage of this as well, which is ironic, even as they decry the philosophy itself.

We went from a nation progressing out dark ages philosophy and into scientific enlightenment during the first half of the last century, steadily downwards to the "justified" idiocy which we have today.

This is something I do attribute to liberalism in a sense, but not to enlightenment philosophy. I think it actually is a perversion of enlightenment ideals, which greatly saddens me. And what saddens me more is the use of it for the justification of right wing extremism and creationism.

Liberalism hasn't always been tied to postmodernism, but I do see your point. It is certainly due to postmodernism, which itself tends to favor liberal points of view, that we have so many who want to "choose your own" beliefs. As the generally liberal Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynahan said, we are entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts.

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I'm an author and editor who has published on a range of topics, including archaeology, science, and horror fiction. There's more about me in the About Jason tab.